foreverknightfandomcom-20200216-history
User talk:Kodia
If I have left you a message on your talk page, please reply there to keep the conversation together Another update Another day (or two), another update. First off, I've done a bit of work on the Episodes section. All episodes now have their own page—though admittedly, for most of them, it is really no more than just the template. I started doing a bit more filling in for Season Three, and then decided to go back to the beginning and start with "Dark Knight". Now, I should tell you that I've made hardly any changes to the text you wrote! No, mostly I've been changing the pictures. Not all: there is one that you had which NAT didn't do quite the same in the new Episode Archives, and yours is better. However, the others have all been whisked off to History (where you can retrieve them if you want). There are two obvious differences in layout. First, I've put the Cast section between the Summary and the Synopsis. It seemed to me odd (and would probably do so to others) to have a quick summation of the plot if it was then immediately followed by the long version. And, of all the other sections, Cast was the obvious one to use in between: (a) a lot of people are interested in who-played-what; (b) it reminds people of the names of the characters; and © gives them a few small pictures, so they can visualize as they read on. The second difference relates to pictures generally—something that I need to talk about at some length, whether here or in a separate message. (Oh, here, I guess.) All of your pictures were full screenshots. In other words, no cropping was done. They are all, therefore in the ratio of 4:3 (width:length). You simply ran a strip of them down the right hand side of the page, and put "thumb" in the mark-up; and they came out in a beautiful neat column, all exactly the same size. I've got the default set, so that means that they were all 180 pixels wide. The length comes out proportionally; and, in the 4:3 ratio, that means they were all 135 pixels high. This is very neat and tidy. However, it is not necessarily optimal. Some pictures have the subject completely filling the screen, and are well composed in terms of mass and balance. But this is not always true. In some instances, the subject(s) are small in the centre or off to one side. In that case, judicious cropping can remove the blank bits so that the eye can focus on the important stuff. Cropping can also enable you to focus in on a detail. And it can be used to reshape a picture so that it triggers a different set of associations. For example, if you see a picture that is in the 4:3 ratio, it looks like a TV screen. Your mind recognizes the assocation, and says "screenshot". But, if you see a picture that is in a 3:4 ratio (taller than it is wide), the mind says "photo". Indeed, if the subject is a person, it likely thinks "portrait". Not that that is the only ratio for portraits, of course. The common 4x6 print—if oriented upright, as one would put it in a frame—obviously has a ration of 2:3, while the big blow-up 8x10 picture is 4:5. But the point is that all of these are narrow and high. It is very nice to head a Character page with a portrait. That means a cropped picture, of which I have done quite a few—and uploaded a number of them already. You can see them in the Images files. Now, if you simply write "thumb" when you do the mark-up for an image, the wiki automatically processes the picture as 180px wide. It does the height proportionally. For a screenshot in 4:3, that means that the result is 180px wide and 135px high. But, if you have cropped out a nice portrait in 3:4, then the wiki software produces a picture that is still 180px wide, but it is now 240px tall. That is a huge difference in appearance, since the eye gauges size by area. What is more, the large portrait may not actually look as good: not only does it occupy a large portion of the space on the page, but it may be a bit blurry because it has been enlarged from the picture that was uploaded. The solution is to specify a size. When you do the mark-up for the image, you can define exactly the width you want (sticking a width in pixels between two of those "pipe" | things). You specify the width: the wiki works out the length. If you also add "thumb", then the whole thing will go into a box with a caption. If you don't add "thumb", just the picture is shown: however, the caption will be visible when you run your mouse over the picture. (Okay, I'm probably telling you stuff you already know. But just in case....) The relevance of this to the Episodes page is this: your pictures all fitted into a tidy strip down the right side of the page. My cropped pictures—since they all come out different heights—don't look so good done that way. My solution has been to specify their size, and then run them alternately (more or less) on the left and the right, usually with one picture per paragraph. Have a look at Dark Knight, and see what you think. Oh, the other thing: since the portraits are narrow, you can put three of them side by side, done really small, and do them in a little strip beside the list of guest actors. That makes the Cast section a bit more interesting. Greer Watson 23:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC) :Yep, this all makes sense. The markup information, yes, I did know this already. The aspect ratios I've picked up logically from my work in the industry. The rest, well, I think you've done a fine job. The little strip of pictures is very nice. I think it will be very useful too in the historical flashbacks section possibly as well, should the situation warrant it.--Kodia 14:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC) Aaaghh!! I did all that on pictures and totally forgot to tell you about the other things I've been doing. (I said "First,...." Second and third got lost somewhere.) So, second!: I've taken the page you did for Special Effects and turned it into a category. The old page is now a redirect. The text is on the new category page, except for the stuff on Ribena and Contact Lenses, which ran pretty long. Each of those now has its own page. Also, I rewrote the Ribena one a bit, since you may think the stuff is very sweet (have you tried it?); but, properly diluted, it's really just a kid's drink like Kool-Aid. The way you phrased it would outrage most British fans, who grew up on the stuff. And then third: I've started a new main Category (i.e. right under Forever Knight) called Vampires. In it go all the things pertaining to the way Vampires are depicted in the FK Universe. I dare say you were heading in that direction yourself, since it's obvious that the vampire side of FK is dear to your heart. :Yes, I've tried Ribena. Undiluted it's vile and overly sweet. And the original writeup was done...oh....right when FK came out and remained unchanged when I posted it here. So... :) As for the categorization yes, that's exactly where I was headed. But the job and my mundane responsibilities have kept me from doing great chunks of editing on the wiki except in short bursts. I was picking projects I could complete in half an hour, where possible. :) Thanks for updating the categories.--Kodia 14:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC) Anyway, I've cross-categoried the Vampire Characters, the Terminology, and the Special Effects. I've also done a number of pages on specific things: How to Kill a Vampire, for example, and How to Bring a Vampire Across. There's not much on the pages yet; but the idea is to list all the things from each show, individually by show. Then, for the How to Bring Across page, there's a section at the end where people can try their hand at putting it together. There's also a page for all the characteristics of FK vampires, and one for comparisons with other vampires (i.e. the things FK vampires don't do, like sleep in coffins or go catatonic at dawn). So far so good. More to do, though. Much more. Greer Watson 23:59, 2 August 2008 (UTC) :Do you think it would be of benefit to leave a note on the "How to" pages discussion page noting the original intent of what you were trying? I think that if we start to get additional editors who want to flesh that information out, it might be useful for them to know where you were originally going with it.--Kodia 14:40, 10 August 2008 (UTC) Boxes -- and characters I mentioned boxes earlier—and then got into doing them for the Episodes pages, where they work just fine. However, I've spent the last couple of days working on the Character pages. Here you have also got boxes. But I really don't think that they are as effective. So I haven't used them. Perhaps it might be best if I started by explaining what (or so it seems to me) are the advantages of boxes, when used appropriately. Take the Episodes pages, for example. They are clearly characterized visually to anyone who clicks on one of them: each has the same distinctive layout. The page is headed by two boxes: yours, on the right; and the table of contents (which is automatically generated), which appears on the left. To add interest, your box has a picture at the top: a picture that is associated with the episode in question, and which is exactly the same dimensions as the pictures on the top of the boxes on the other Episodes pages. What is more, all the boxes are the same size, within a line or so. All have the same information listed for the episode: date, writer, producer, etc. And (this is essential!), for all of them this information is relevant and filled in. That is, all episodes have a writer—and all have the name filled in. All episodes had an original broadcast date—and all have it filled in. And so on. This creates a set of uniform boxes, all the same size, all containing the same sort of routine information that many people will want to pass over (and can), but which is displayed for those who want to check something. Now let us turn to the Character boxes—and I'm taking both the Human and Vampire character boxes together here. Again, each box is headed with a picture. But, as I said in an earlier message, whereas the use of uniform full-dimension screenshots subliminally evokes the television set on which one sees the show, for a character it really works better to head the page with a portrait. The trouble is that every portrait is individually cropped from its screenshot. Each, therefore, has slightly different dimensions. Forcing all to be the same width (which is what the box does) produces an inevitable lack of uniformity. Yet the strictures of the box structure invite an interpretation of uniformity: all boxes should be the same length and width, and hold the same range of data. Which brings me to the list of data. For so many characters, most of the things in the box are unknown. One need only look at Miklos, say. We know the actor, and that he is a bartender at the Raven. But we don't know his nationality, or his age, or whether he had a family. For an average vampire, say Danny, we also don't know who brought him over, where and when this happened, and whether he in turn brought anyone else over. As a result, most of these boxes are filled with "Unknown"s. To make matters worse, when other people start to make new Character pages, not all will tackle filling the box out in the same way. Some may use other terms, such as "Not applicable", "N/A", "???", and the like. Others may simply leave blank those things that don't apply. There are those people who, faced with a form, feel compelled to fill out every line. There are those who leave lines blank. Neither solution is optimal. If you fill in almost everything as "Unknown", the eye passes over it in boredom, not registering the few things that are there. You gain uniformity, but lose reason: the reason for the box, after all, is to present data; yet here there is effectively no data to present. If, on the other hand, you leave blanks, then you gain reason: people see only matters of potential interest. However, the way the box is generated, if there are blanks, then they are left out of the box and a line run across instead. This means that the box is significantly shorter in height, and it is crossed by several mysterious lines. Furthermore, some of the data requested is very inflexible. One is asked for "Aliases", for example. Yet this is not only filled in with genuine aliases, such as the many names that Nick has used in the flashbacks of the series, but it is also filled with a variety of modes of address that would not ordinarily be considered to be aliases. This is potentially risible. Consider this: Let us suppose your name is Robert Mackintosh. You and some other people, family and friends, are in a car together. You are stopped by the police, and asked to show ID. You hand over your driver's licence, which gives your full formal name: Robert John Mackintosh. As the cop inspects this and looks at the car registration, the other people in the car start to talk to you. Your wife calls you "Bob", your friend calls you "Mac", and your daughter calls you "Daddy". The cop says you are going under several aliases, which is highly suspicious, and hauls you off to the station in handcuffs. (What is wrong with this scenario?) There is a serious inflexibility in the box format, and nowhere more so than with the matter of modes of address. A nickname is not an alias. And I don't think the answer is simply to put in another line: either that will usually be blank (and the length of the box even more variable), or yet another "Unknown" will be added to the list. So I have dispensed with boxes. At least for the Character pages. (The Episode pages still have them, of course.) Having said this, I must reassure you that I haven't even touched any of the pages on which you did a lot of work. Schanke, for instance. Or Erica. These are exactly as you did them. And a number of the minor vampires' pages are also the same, since I hadn't put them on Fan History. Instead, I have ported in the data from the various pages that I did do on Fan History {tweaked in a way that suits me better than their formula does}. And I have done some, but not all, of your stubs. There is still a uniform layout to the pages. * Each starts with a portrait on the left, and point form data on the right. Point form is more flexible than a box, you see. It can cover the same ground, but you can leave out the things that are inapplicable. If you choose, anyway. Also, you can alter things to suit the individual case if it presents some peculiar variation. * After that, for the vampires, I have a separate point (or points) for their date/place/master, and their own children, if any. This is only put in if known, though. * Then you get the essay, sometimes with pictures. (I'll add more pictures later on some pages.) * Then there's a section for Main Characters that is called "Episodes of Significance", or for Recurring Characters that is simply called "Episodes". Guest characters don't get this because they were only in one episode. * Then there is a section for "Fan Fiction". At the moment, this mostly is blank. Anyway, have a look. Since I left a number of your old pages untouched, you have plenty of scope for making comparisons. Greer Watson 11:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC) What other wikis do with colours Browsing around the Entertainment hub I spotted some other wikis that are doing interesting things with colour coordination. The Batman wiki, for example, is a symphony in blue. The background colour is a medium-light, slightly greyish blue, the bars across the top of the page are navy, and the general info in the sidebar (Upload image, Special pages, Help, Recent changes etc) have been given the same grey-blue background colour. Of course, they've also done black/navy/blue/white graphics throughout the main page: we want to use screen captures. But this is the perfect example of colour coordination. Very professional looking. (Not that we'd use blue of course.) The Marvel Movies wiki is focusing on the Incredible Hulk—whether just now or always, I don't know; but, of course, the movie's out. They're using a deep, deep green background colour behind everything: it's behind the sidebar; but also it's the one you see when the page is loading. There's a black band across the top of the skin, and pale blue bands elsewhere. Their main info panel (scroll down!) is in a light green, with the info posted on it. Again, all is colour coordinated. (Not that we'd use green, either!) The Indiana Jones wiki is using a white background. But they've clearly done something to the colours of the sidebar, since the bands across the sections are a deep black-brown, their own menu is backed on beige (with black letters), while the common menu is on brown (with white letters). As brown is just about my favourite colour, I like the look of this site a lot—though again, I'm not suggesting that it is a particularly FK colour. The point is that the people running all of these wikis have clearly done something to the rules for their page that are highly individual. I don't think these are any of the regular choices. They've been customizing the look of their wikis. If we can find out how to do this, then we can work up a set of colours for the FK wiki. Maybe a red/maroon/black or red/burgundy/black combination, with touches of cream (say in the background of the menu). Do you know how to find out how this sort of customizing is done? :I do, but I may need to find someone to help me out with it. I know a bit about it, but maybe not enough to do it all myself. I'll ask one of my other admins on the other wiki I work with to see if he might be able to point me to some good information and I'll see what I can do.--Kodia 03:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC) ::Well, any help I can give with colour coordination...! I'm familiar with hexcodes, since I wrote my own website from scratch. Greer Watson 04:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC) To be honest, it's not the hex codes I find troublesome (I've done hundreds of websites by hand too). It's the CSS files that I have to worry about. On wiki sites, there are a couple of CSS-related pages to change in order to get everything working like it should. I just need to figure out which ones are the ones that need to be edited in order for us to change the looks. I've found one, possibly two, but I have something ticking in the back of my head that says there are more. I'm going to do some checking around.--Kodia 14:13, 13 August 2008 (UTC) The picture at the top Since it may affect the choice of colour scheme, we should consider whether we want to replace the picture at the top of the sidebar. (I assume that sysops can replace an old picture with a new one.) Is the current one a straight screen capture off the opening credits? Or did you use some computer program like Photoshop to run the logo across one of the skyline pictures? I know there's a clearer screen capture of that same skyline in the Forever Knight Episode Archives, but without the logo. Or alternatively the Archives have a nice screen capture that comes from the opening credits. (I don't think the one from the closing credits got done.) The current picture is fine conceptually, of course: I like the idea of having the FK logo. I'm just suggesting we might consider replacing it with a crisper, better quality screen capture. — Greer Watson 04:07, 12 August 2008 (UTC) :These are the ones I'm talking about. — Greer Watson 04:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC) I can change these easily. It's merely a matter of which one you'd like. Both are quite dark, however. On the one with the logo, the dark letters don't really pop out of the background as well as they could. I can use the one there if you'd like (with the logo) and we can work on replacing it at a future date once we figure out a color scheme. I think I'll end up doing that, since it's clearly better than the one we have right now. We can talk about what to change on a new one later.--Kodia 12:22, 12 August 2008 (UTC) :A lot is going to depend on the background colour. I know from experience that, if one has a very dark background (black, say, which would give us the foundation for a "midnight" scheme), then things that look dark on a white background actually come out looking natural, while things that look okay on white come out looking overly brilliant on black. As you say, it depends on the colour scheme we pick. :Anyway, whatever we go with will need resizing so it fits neatly into the sidebar. — Greer Watson 14:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC) The picture has been temporarily replaced. If you decide you'd like to have a different one because you've adjusted colors et. al., please let me know. The file dimensions *must* be 135 pixels wide and 155 pixels tall. --Kodia 14:55, 12 August 2008 (UTC) :Must not be more than that, as I read the instructions. Anyway, have a look at . It's a lighter version of the same screen capture. It's larger, of course, and still needs to be resized. I can only do the resizing as JPG files, and they want something different. :Still not perfect, but the best I can do with what I have. — Greer Watson 15:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC) ::I've been browsing some more in the Entertainment wikis. Most of them have clearly followed the 135px rule on width (which doesn't fill up the entire width of the sidebar, and isn't even centred). However, there are a few that have obviously made logos that do fill the full width. Check out Batman, Law & Order, and Star Wars Fanon, for example. Do you know what is going on here? — Greer Watson 23:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC) The log we have in place right now looks like it takes up the full width like Batman et. al. so I guess I'm confused as to what appears to be the difference. Are you sure you don't have a cached version of the page that's not displaying things correctly for the FK wiki? Ours looks like theirs right now.--Kodia 11:22, 13 August 2008 (UTC) :It is like theirs, in as much as it runs right the way across the sidebar. However, the image used is actually wider than the sidebar. As a result, when it is displayed, the right edge of the image is cut off. You can tell this because the logo is off centre. (If that's not true for you, we must be using different browsers.) :The solution is to upload a thumbnail that is the exact width of the sidebar, and use that. Clearly this is what has been done for the wikis for Batman/Law & Order/et al. :All I need to know is the exact width of the sidebar, and I can do the thumbnail. One thing is for sure: it is a lot wider than 135 px. — Greer Watson 00:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC) Actually, the difference is so slight that I didn't even notice it, though now that you mention it, I can see it based on the buildings in the skyline. I'll check into the exact size of that left sidebar. I think I know where to look. And yes, I am using something different than most people. I usually do most of my editing on the Mac OSX portion of my iMac (though I have been known to edit on Windows, via Bootcamp on the same machine). I check most of my work on Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer to ensure cross-browser compatibility.--Kodia 00:48, 14 August 2008 (UTC) Categories I've just been going through the full list of categories, checking out things in red—and correcting the typos, which is what they mostly are. However, when you created the archive for this page, you gave it a category (of course), but you forgot to create the category. "Archived talk pages" or whatever. :Picky, picky. ;-) --Kodia 04:15, 17 August 2008 (UTC) The Police Station pages Or at least the ones for the 96th Precinct police station. The 27th Precinct I haven't started. Actually, since my virtual season comes after the series, I never did write anything up for the 27th. But when I was helping with the Episode Archives, I make a point of suggesting good shots of the 27th, and I got a fair idea of its layout. Before I do that, though, I really should finish the page for the morgue. And then there's Natalie's apartment (the one from Season Two), and Tracy's apartment from Season Three. The loft I got half done—which is not short, let me tell you. Anyway, the point of this is to tell you that—unless I spot another good picture (which is not impossible)—I've done the assorted pages for the 96th Precinct. (I've done them!! I've done them!!!!) So, if you'd like to go and spot the typos.... (There are always typos. I expect you'll add more links, too.) Meanwhile, I'm going to take a break. — Greer Watson 16:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC) :I'll be happy to take a look at the page. Thanks for letting me know. As for the rest, no burnout, ok? You've got a lot of great info available. I'd had to see burnout keep it from being shared. This should be fun. If it's not fun, don't do it. Now, as for the loft pictures (and by association any of the other locations)....if the pages start to become overlong, viewers have difficulty dealing with them. If I might suggest it, we can shorten those pages to the large main sections and prevent the pages from becoming overlong. Right now you have the 96th precinct page broken into big chunks. Those big chunks could easily be their own pages to avoid the browser display troubles that often crop up with overlong pages. If you think of the loft the same way, organizing it in big chunks similar to the precinct page, we can do the same thing with that and other long pages too. Now, some pages won't require being broken up. But overlong ones will. What's overlong? Anything approaching 32kb (that's dictated by the wiki) in size or anything that requires more than 3-4 full-screen scrolls on the browser window (that's dictated by current trends). So keep it in the back of your head when you head to the loft writeup. :)